Grants & Fellowship Opportunities

Strategic Initiative

Museum of Vernacular Arts and Knowledge
$100,000
Chicago, Illinois
2023

To fund planning activities for The New Art School Modality (NASM), a new art-school model grounded in the tenets of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s in Chicago and reflecting its ethos of collaboration, experimentation, and improvisation. During the planning phase, Museum of Vernacular Arts and Knowledge will offer three long-form and one or two short-form NASM programs, refine course design, develop its business model, identify institutional and funding partners, and define impact measures.   

Center for Native Futures
$150,000
Chicago, Illinois
2023

To support a series of activities, starting in summer 2023 through 2024, to inaugurate the center’s new gallery and workshop space in the Marquette Building in downtown Chicago. The activities that are part of the Terra Foundation initiative Art Design Chicago include an inaugural exhibition (September 2023–April 2024) showcasing art and poetry by the center’s six co-founders; a second exhibition (June–December 2024) featuring work by artists with ties to the Great Lakes region; public programs comprising artist talks, studio tours, and workshops; and the second biannual Mounds Summit (December 2023).  

Sharjah Art Foundation
$25,000
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
2022

To support the participation of U.S.–based artists in the 2023 edition of the March Meeting of the Sharjah Biennial (UAE). Entitled Thinking Historically in the Present, the convening explores the multiplicity of interpretations of time and place that exist outside of Euro-American-centric perspectives. The March Meeting’s video-recorded sessions and papers are accessible online for free on the organization’s website. 

Smarthistory
$68,000
Pleasantville, NY
2022

To fund Latinx Art Histories and Futures, a project to develop new content exploring Latinx art and art histories, to be published to the Smarthistory website for use by high school and college students as well as lifelong learners. 

The Laundromat Project
$35,000
Brooklyn, NY
2022

To support a public convening and a convening of more than two hundred artist alumni of The Laundromat Project’s Create Change program so that values, best practices, and challenges can be shared in the development of collaborative community art projects. The alumni convening comprises panel discussions, artist-led learning sessions, artmaking workshops, and performances. 

Contemporary And
$86,000
Berlin, Germany
2022

To support three-day critical writing workshops for thirty emerging art writers in Atlanta and Dallas focusing, respectively, on Black and Latinx perspectives. The workshops address arts writing and reporting and offer the possibility to publish texts in Contemporary And (C&); they provide concrete tools to participants and engage with questions linked to local contexts. They are followed by a six-month mentoring program connecting eight mentee participants with local and international art writers with the aim of to expanding professional networks and providing opportunities for knowledge– and experience–sharing from various local and global perspectives. 

Voices in Contemporary Art
$100,000
New York, New York
2022

To support the three-year pilot initiative “Native Voices,” which aims to illuminate the art-making practices and materials of six contemporary Native American artists alongside their personal and social histories and to advance best practices for the long-term preservation of their work, addressing the significant voids in professional knowledge about the unique conservation needs of contemporary Native American art. The initiative includes four major program threads: artist interviews (VoCA Talks), artist interview workshops, artist interview archiving and dissemination, and an issue of the VoCA Journal.

The Studio Museum in Harlem
$1,000,000
New York, United States
2022

To support “Unearthing the Archive,” a four-year research project that explores archival materials, oral histories, primary documents, and other sources to illuminate the histories and legacy of the Studio Museum as a nexus for Black art in Harlem’s epicenter. Publications as well as accessible and alternative modes of storytelling will accompany the archival work, giving voice to the creative ideas, output, and patrimony of Black art and culture. This project anticipates the opening of the museum’s new building in 2024.

South Side Community Art Center
$750,000
Chicago, Illinois
2022

To support a four-year project to expand the South Side Community Art Center’s capacity to preserve its art and archival collections and make them accessible for research and study.

Soul of Nations Foundation
$150,000
Florence, Italy
2022

To support a residency and professional development program at the Soul Center for the Arts in Florence, Italy, which includes ten fellowship grants for five Native American, three African American, and two Afro-Italian artists. This program provides the artists with space to work and opportunities to further cross-cultural dialogue regarding geographically displaced BIPOC experiences. Fellows will engage in public programs locally, and their art will be shared via the internet and through publications.

Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture
$75,000
Maine, United States
2022

To support The Skowhegan Book (working title), a publication that marks the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture’s first foray into the history of its origins, philosophy, physical site, and artists since its opening in 1946. The publication is constructed from archival work drawn from interviews, oral histories, ephemera, and lectures, highlighting how Skowhegan’s School of Painting and Sculpture has created, and continues to create, an equitable, accessible, and expansive mode for studio work in a community context.

Serpentine Galleries
$75,000
London, United Kingdom
2022

To support Black Chapel, the 2022 Serpentine Pavilion designed by visual artist Theaster Gates and constructed with the architectural support of Adjaye Associates. The pavilion will be open from June 10 to October 16, 2022, and will be accompanied by a series of live artist interventions and an illustrated catalogue examining Black Chapel within the larger context of Gates’s body of work.